Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/128

 had accorded him a second interview, 'that super totam materiam I am in a state of grace, to say no more. I am afraid I shall not be able to lay aside that natural severity and regularity with which I am too much troubled to live in these times, but I will endeavour at it.... I hear knights swarm. I know not what to do with myself. I think I could be a knight also.'

Dr. Petty, however, notwithstanding the marks of royal favour which he had received, found his interests gravely jeopardised by the new turn of events. It was one thing to be able to satisfy the fancies of the easy-going King and to win the goodwill of the Duke of Ormonde: it was quite another to deal with the exasperated enmities of the champions of the Church and State in Parliament, who, more royalist than the King, more zealous for the Book of Common Prayer than the Primate or the Chancellor, regarded the adherents of the deceased Protector, the Commonwealth men and the Anabaptists, as all equally objectionable, and drew no subtle distinctions.

Immediately before the Restoration Dr. Petty had received a promise of favourable treatment in a royal letter of January 2, 1660; but the King was now finding great difficulty in maintaining his promises, when they happened to clash with the views of the party now in the ascendant. After the complete victory of the Church and Cavaliers at the election of 1661, a general onslaught both on the old Republican party and the adherents of the Protector, and even on the Presbyterians, had begun. The dead bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, had just been dragged from their graves in the Abbey and hung at Tyburn, and the question was whether the easy-going King would be able to protect the property of anybody who had been connected with the late Protector.

The position of Dr. Petty was peculiar. He belonged to neither of the two great parties which had made the